The Outcasts of Time

by Ian Mortimer

Between brothers, wordlessness is sometimes more meaningful than conversation.

‘It seems to me that ordinary people are paying a heavy price for all the wealth in the country.’

‘But how can I tell what a good deed is in this day and age? What is “good” and “bad” if God’s law is constantly changing? How can we do good if the meaning of “good” and “bad” are dependent on who wins the war? How can a man go through this world in sure knowledge that he is doing the right and proper thing?’

There’s a great girdle drawn tight around the world, and it’s being drawn tighter and tighter, and while it’s bringing our bodies closer together, it’s driving our souls further apart.’

‘The man who has no knowledge of the past has no wisdom.’

Once war was a matter for brave soldiers, fighting hand to hand. Then it became a bloodthirsty zone of deadly musket balls. And now it is everywhere. War has infected everything, so that even the most precious things in our lives are vulnerable.

It seems evident that the world has indeed drawn closer to one another – but only in order to fight.

‘I . . . understand that everything has a dark side and a good. Not even a good man can make the world a better place for everyone. Even if all the men and women in the world were kind to one another, it would not last. It would be merely a moment, and that moment of perfection would pass as surely as the hand on a clock passing the hour, moving onward towards strife and war.’

‘That men and women have a limited capacity for happiness and suffering. If you were to make their lives more luxurious, and to remove their pain, they would find other ways in which to be discontented. And if you were to make their lives miserable, they would find joy in the slightest delights.’

. . . I wish I could have helped more. I wanted to help people but I never could. I was weak, ignorant and useless. The only good that touched my life was what other people did for me.’